10.11.11

The end is near! Again!

Over a couple of evenings I've been superefficient and that means these gaming pieces are getting done. At long last. I mean, I have complained about the offensively bad quality of the material...

But I should get to the point already. The Kell Hound 'Mechs got a bit of grey highlighting on their black surfaces and obviously a bit more of that red on the red ones. I tried to achieve some sort of "line highlighting" effect but as it was the first time, it didn't end up being anything awesome. To make something look better easily I applied a light coat of my ancient Citadel Yellow Glaze on all the cockpit viewports to give them a shiny surface - the yellow pigment doesn't really alter the orange/green parts noticeably. They look better and less like odd splotches of colour. So I did this to all the minis of the set while I was at it.

While I was happily detailing the ComGuards 'Mechs, I went through all the important panel lines with Badab Black to bring back the panel line where I had made a mess with the grey and white. This made them look quite a lot nicer, especially Cicada's cupola looks neat. I had to check Sarna.net's wiki where I should apply antennas (and how many) on the 'Mechs that hadn't got theirs yet. Then I applied those, playing time because I was somewhat concerned of the looming logo-painting.

No matter what I did, I knew that the logos were to be painted at some point. As the first step I just fixed the Draconis Combine BattleMechs: the Combine logos were to be converted to the Golden Dragon logos, and I did that to the best of my ability. Next ones up were the Kell Hounds with their simple triangle logo with the dog's head. Another triangle-based logo was to be painted on the Death Commandos, so they got theirs next. I just couldn't try to paint that skull the way it's presented in Camospecs, so I did something. Not that one could see many details in these tiny miniatures anyway.

The sunburst of the Federated Suns was done by first making a small red ring on each of the four 'Mechs and later making a weird, yellow, star-like splotch on that red dot. The sword's blade was made with two gray stripes and its handle with a bit of black. A couple of them may actually look half-decent or tolerable, even. Crusis Lancer's logo is just a yellow box with black and grey stripes going through it, so that being recognizeable on these things is maybe a bit of a stretch. That's not an exciting logo to begin with, though.

Lyran Guards' regimental logo was somewhat painful because of the shield. The purplish paint I mixed dried too dark, but that's how it sometimes goes. Maybe those crossed swords make it more recognizeable?
As the last ones on the list, the ComGuards tin cans needed their insignia. I got wiser from my previous attempt ("Pesterers") and I didn't even dream of painting the 3rd Army's hooded falcon on a black gauntlet. Instead I painted black rectangles, a blue dot in each and then the two-pronged star's tail. Not too happy with those things, either.

In this scale and especially with the lighter 'Mechs most the logos didn't get too much space, so recognizing them is challenging. The viewer needs to use some (=plenty) goodwill ;) The main thing is that I know that they're there, even if no one pays a picosecond of attention to them.

The ultimate step for this post were the bases. I painted them brown. Next I'll apply sand and maybe some flocking on them. Maybe I could even try to set up a gravel road somewhere, even? I'll find out when I get there. These pieces won't be for display or anything, they're for playing, so I can experiment with them pretty freely.

All in all I guess there's a load of tiny stuff that's still missing (in addition to the bases), mostly the ACs, lasers and PPCs need something to tell which's what and where. While painting the Jade Falcon OmniMechs I've painted the LRM and SRM tips slightly differently: LRM's are completely red and the SRMs are likewise red but they've got white caps (I should upload pics of them, too). As you can see below, the SRM-6 launcher of the Commando is the only one in the set that's not just a tiny half-clogged hole. Maybe it looks better with the missile heads painted and not just drilled open. I just pondered for a while if it made any sense to take the Jade Falcon - approach or if that just makes them a mess. I decided not to try.